


Poker Face

by l_cloudy



Category: How to Get Away with Murder
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Missing Scene, POV Female Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-03
Updated: 2015-02-03
Packaged: 2018-03-10 08:10:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3283199
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/l_cloudy/pseuds/l_cloudy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Michaela Pratt doesn’t want to look like she just spent the night disposing of a dead body.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Poker Face

Wes calls her first thing in the morning, and only yesterday that would have been the weirdest thing to happen to Michaela all week. Today, Michaela supposes that hauling Sam Keating’s dead body in the back of Connor’s truck is enough of a bonding activity to let him get away with calling at six ten in the morning.

So she answers.

“What?” Michaela snaps, ignoring the way her hand shakes around the phone. Her left hand. Her _bare_ left hand. “What is it, Wes, it’s six in the morning, I could have been sleeping –”

“But you weren’t,” Wes interrupts, sounding calmer than he had any rights to be. Michaela remembers how Wes was the only one to keep his cool yesterday, how he saw her reduced to some pathetic thing crying in the corner, how he talked them all into burning a body and _his_ hands didn’t ever tremble.

She hates him a little.

“Whatever. Seriously Wes, what do you want?”

 _It can’t be anything too bad_ , Michaela tells herself, taking one deep breath after the other. This is Wes calling, not the police knocking at her door. They were careful, no one saw anything, no one could possibly –

“Heads up,” he says. “Annalise, Dr. Keating. She went to the police tonight, about Sam.”

The phone falls from her frozen hand.

“Fuck.”

She really hopes it didn’t break. All her contacts are in there, the wedding planning, and Aiden said he would call today, and _Annalise went to the police._

“Fuck.” Michaela wants to scream. “Fuck, fuck, _fuck_.”

“Michaela?” comes Wes’s muffled voice from  somewhere under her bed. “Michaela, you there?”

“Yeah.” She throws herself down on the floor in an undignified mess, grasping at the air. “Yeah, wait.”

She emerges from under the bed with her hair dusty and the phone safely in hand. “Wes, what the _fuck_?”

And to think, she usually makes point not to swear. It is _unladylike_ , according to Mrs. Walker, and Michaela decided long ago not to piss off her future mother-in-law unless absolutely necessary.

On the other side of the ether, Wes seems finally to notice something is wrong. “No, wait,” he says, a fumbling, apologetic mess. “I didn’t mean it like _that_. Annalise told the police Sam skipped town because he might have killed Lila. That’s… a good thing.”

“And couldn’t you have started with _that_?” Michaela almost shrieks, and she usually doesn’t do that either. And now she lost it twice in two days, and Wait List witnessed it all.

She hates Wes Gibbins a little more.

“I should have,” he says. “Sorry.”

 _Yeah, that helps_. But she doesn’t say it, and the pause in the conversation is long and a little awkward.

“Look, Michaela,” Wes continues. “I just wanted to let you know, the police will be there, and they’ll ask us when we saw Sam the last time, and we’ll tell them whatever because we were at the bonfire last night. And that’s it.”

 _That’s it_. That’s all, it’s good, the perfect crime.

“Great,” Michaela hears herself say, and her voice sounds _so flat_. “Did you call the others already, or should I –”

“No, that’s fine. I did it.” Wes clears his throat. “I didn’t – didn’t sleep much, either, so…”

His voice breaks a little, and for the first time he sounds as nervous as Michaela feels. _So_ , she thinks. All done.

“Well, great,” she repeats. “I guess – I guess I’ll see you later.”

“Yeah. Uh, we should go to Annalise’s, and –”

 _Yeah, whatever_. “I know,” Michaela cuts in. “I know. I’ll see you there.” She tells herself everything will be alright, because it _will_.

It has to.

“And, Wes?”

Michaela doesn’t like that she sounds so _small_.

“Yes?”

“Let’s not fuck this up.”

Though, honestly, she should be telling _herself_ that. The others had looked all calm and composed, like they killed sleazy, possibly-murderous professors every other day. Even Connor’s mild freak-out had lasted all of twenty minutes.

 _He_ probably slept like a baby.

It’s six thirty now, and it’s still December so it still looks like the middle of the night outside, and Michaela hates the way the cold lights in her bathroom make her look sick. Her hair is a mess, her eyes all puffy, and her skin – she looks exactly like she spent a night getting rid of a body.

Which, _not_. First thing to do not to be considered a murderer suspect – do not _look_ like a murder suspect. That much she can do.

Michaela looks at her face in the mirror, considering.

So what, she maybe partied a little too hard last night and came home thinking she should have studied instead, and she can get away with looking a little stressed. She _is_ an overworked first year law student three days from finals, stress is perfectly understandable. Expected, even. No one will care.

Michaela meets her own eyes in the mirror and thinks back to her carefully constructed persona, trying to get back to the girl she was only yesterday morning. Michaela Pratt, upper middle class co-ed with higher aspiration. Michaela Pratt, preppy overachiever. Michaela Pratt, first of her class, Ivy League graduate. Michaela Pratt, future career woman and political wife. Channeling Michelle Obama, just with better hair.

Speaking of.

She takes a shower first, blinking at the slap of cold water on her naked skin, feeling goosebumps all over. She takes out her prettiest underwear, the red matching set she usually saves for Aiden’s visits, and this could almost be a Hallmark moment about confidence and building a person from the inside out, or something. She puts on her third-prettiest dress, and the white might be a faux pass but she looks _damn good_ , and she’s so past caring. Next, she blow-dries her lotion-heavy hair, puts diamond studs in her ears, and suddenly she almost feels like herself again.

She smiles in the mirror, and it doesn’t look fake at all.

Michaela Pratt, accessory to murder.

She can work with that.

**Author's Note:**

> Because I finally got around to watching the latest episode last night, and sure thing Michaela looks pretty well put together for a girl who spent a night covering up a murder.


End file.
